Chapter 18
PENELOPE
“For the last time—strip,” Dmitri commanded.
His voice was guttural and commanding, each word brimming with the kind of dominance that made the walls themselves seem to flinch.
“No.” My voice cracked but didn’t falter.
I lifted my chin, nails biting into my palms as if pain alone could hold my ground. “I won’t.”
I hated him—for twisting the boy who kissed my temple and called me treasure into this beast who now wielded power over my breath.
His lips curved into a dark smirk, “Okay.”
The word slithered through the air like a death sentence.
He moved then, a blur of brutal grace, the stitches across his abdomen tugging but never slowing him.
I tried to bolt—bare feet skidding against cold marble—but he was faster. His hand clamped around my wrist, the grip iron, inescapable. With a brutal twist, he spun me, yanking my arms behind my back.
The sharp click of metal rang out like a gunshot. Smooth, black leather cuffs tightened around my wrists, deceptively soft but unyielding in their grip.
Panic surged. I thrashed, kicking, but his strength caged me like steel.
“You monster! Let me go!” I spat, voice sharp with defiance though it quivered under the weight of his control.
He hummed low in his throat, a sound almost amused, almost tender, but carrying the weight of absolute possession.
His scent wrapped around me, choking and intoxicating all at once. “You’ll watch your greatest fear unfold right here,” he murmured, his words a dark promise that crawled under my skin.
He dragged me across the room, until the velvet-covered chaise loomed before us—its iron frame gleaming in the lamplight.
With ruthless precision, he pushed me down, my cuffed hands pinned beneath me.
I kicked wildly, desperation fueling me, but he caught my ankles in a single, brutal movement.
The second set of restraints snapped shut, the cold bite of iron digging into my skin as he cuffed me spread-eagled against the chaise. My body was caged, exposed, trembling beneath his shadow.
And still, even as fear strangled my breath, I lifted my chin, glaring at him through the heat of tears I refused to let fall. “You can chain me all you want, Dmitri,” I spat, voice raw with rage and heartbreak. “But you’ll never own me.”
He leaned in, close enough for his breath to scorch my skin.
The reality of what he intended slammed into me like a physical blow, hollowing my chest.
My breath stuttered, my body bucking against the restraints as terror clawed its way up my throat.
“No... no, please,” I begged, the word foreign on my tongue, cracking under the weight of a fear too raw to swallow.
My defiance—my last shield—crumbled. “I don’t want it like this.”
Dmitri’s eyes darkened.
His voice, when it came, was a rasp dragged straight from hell.
“No?” His lips twisted into something cruel, “Then I’ll fuck you bloody, Penelope. Until you hate your own body. Until you choke on the truth that you’ve never been anything but mine to destroy.”
He moved with deliberate slowness, each step echoing like a verdict.
His hand reached the drawer, pulling it open with casual certainty.
My stomach dropped as I watched him lift a sleek, black device—small, humming with a low, ominous vibration as he thumbed it alive.
The sound filled the air, heavy, obscene.
I jerked against the cuffs, panic flaring so sharp it stole my breath.
He switched it off, eyes never leaving mine, and placed it beside my bound legs with surgical precision—like a blade laid beside a throat.
The silent threat of it loomed larger than its presence.
“What are you going to do to me?” My whisper broke.
My legs strained against the cuffs in a desperate, useless fight.
The iron cut into my skin, cold and unyielding, like him.
He didn’t answer. Silence was his weapon, and he wielded it with deadly precision. Instead, he drew something else from the drawer—scissors.
My pulse spiked, throat going dry.
I shrank back as far as the cuffs allowed, but there was nowhere left to go. He advanced, until his shadow swallowed me whole. Towering. A wall of dominance.
The scissors whispered through the air as he flicked them near my throat, close enough that I felt the cold metal graze my skin.
My breath caught, terror rising—not just of the cut, but of what it meant.
It wasn’t the blade I feared most. It was the exposure. The stripping. The deliberate, methodical destruction of the dignity I’d clung to like armor.
“Please...” The word tore from me, ragged, shameful.
Tears burned behind my eyes, but I refused to give him more.
He didn’t stop.
The scissors lowered, brushing the hem of my jeans.
With slow, surgical precision, he snipped upward.
Denim parted in two, the sound loud and obscene in the silence. My calf, my knee, my trembling thigh—all revealed under his merciless gaze.
“Dmitri, don’t,” I pleaded, humiliation crashing through me harder than the fear.
My body betrayed me, my most hated flaws bared—stretch marks glaring, soft curves trembling, the imperfections I’d hidden even from myself now exposed under his eyes.
He ignored me. His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking as he dragged the scissors down the second leg, slicing fabric inch by inch. My jeans fell away in ragged strips, pooling useless at my sides. I lay bound, shivering, left in nothing but my panties—the thin scrap of fabric suddenly obscene.
Shame seared hotter than fear. I wanted to vanish, to claw myself out of my own skin. “Don’t rape me, Dmitri,” I whispered, the words ripped from me, naked.
Tears spilled unchecked, my voice cracking like glass. “Kill me, torture me, bleed me dry—but not this. Death would be kinder.”
The scissors stilled in his hand. For a heartbeat, the silence was deafening. He looked down at me, and in his eyes, rage burned—but there was something darker beneath it. An obsession that no death could quench.
His voice dropped, lethal.
“And why,” he murmured, the words a caress and a blade all at once, “should I grant you kindness, Penelope?”
He sliced through the last shred of denim with cruel finality, leaving me bare, trembling before him. “You betrayed me. You handed me to wolves. You sold me out for a taste of freedom you were never going to have.”
His gaze dragged over me, consuming, until I felt skinned alive.
He leaned closer, his scarred chest brushing against my trembling thighs as he caged me in.
His hand gripped my jaw, forcing my tear-streaked face to meet his.
My body shook, anxiety crashing over me in waves, my breath ragged as I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the darkness to swallow me whole.
“You act like a child, Penelope,” Dmitri’s voice cut through, sharp, heavy with scorn. “So naive. So reckless. Running into fire and crying when you burn.”
I clung to the black behind my eyelids, refusing him the satisfaction of my gaze.
Then came the sound—the brutal rip of fabric. Cold air hit my skin as the scissors shredded my panties with one merciless cut.
My eyes flew open, a strangled scream clawing up my throat.
My body—laid bare, stripped of its last defense—trembled violently beneath his shadow. “This is violation!” I cried, tears spilling hot and relentless down my cheeks. “This is cruelty!”
“It is.” His answer was unapologetic, chilling in its simplicity.
His eyes raked over me with consuming possession. “But betrayal deserves no gentleness. Consider this mercy.”
I screamed again, thrashing against the cuffs until the iron bit deep into my wrists and ankles, skin tearing, fire blooming where leather and steel dug in.
“Let me go!” I sobbed, my voice breaking, my heart splintering under the weight of his cruelty.
“Let me go—you’re not him anymore. You killed him. ”
The scissors clattered across the floor, discarded.
The silence after was worse than the cut.
My stomach dropped.
“You keep begging,” he said, unbuckling his belt with unhurried precision. “But you show no remorse. No change. No shame for what you did.”
“Please,” I whispered, my pride shredded, desperation clawing at me. “Please, Dmitri—I’ll do anything you want. Anything. I swear I’ll never betray you again. Just don’t—don’t take me like this.” My voice cracked, tears soaking my cheeks, my body trembling in humiliating surrender.
For the first time, he stilled.
The belt dangled from his fist, his chest heaving as though my words struck something raw.
His eyes narrowed, burning. “You think your begging moves me?” he rasped. “No, Penelope. I will take you by force. I will ruin you until there is no piece of you left unscarred.”
Panic clawed up my throat, my chest rising and falling in frantic gasps. “No... please... I can’t—don’t—” My voice cracked, faltering, tears blurring my vision.
The words spilled in a jumble, stammered and broken, a pitiful prayer I hadn’t thought I’d ever speak aloud.
He crouched lower, his face hovering inches above my trembling thighs. His breath fanned across my exposed skin—warm, invasive, unbearable. My body jolted as though seared.
“You smell so sweet, milaya,” he murmured, voice rough silk.
His lips hovered, grazing the tender skin of my inner thigh without mercy. “As if you were made for one purpose—to be devoured by me.”
My body betrayed me.
Heat pulsed low in my belly, shameful and sharp.
My toes curled, my breath hitched, my thighs quivered against the cuffs. I hated it—I hated myself for it. “I don’t want this,” I sobbed, my voice breaking. “I don’t want you.”
Dmitri’s laugh was dark, dangerous, vibrating against my skin. His lips brushed higher, feather-light, intimate enough to brand me.
“Is that so, milaya?” His voice was a taunt. “Then why is your body begging while your mouth lies?”
He kissed my mons pubis, slow, torturous, leaving fire in his wake. My body arched against the restraints, my tears mixing with shame, fury, and a heat I couldn’t silence.